“Why, Trish?” Katryna asked, looking straight into the face of the woman she had once trusted so deeply.
She thought she did not care, she thought that it did not matter… but the thirst for answers was eating away at her. None of it made sense.
“Why did you do this?”
Trish snickered. “I’m surprised you had to ask, I assumed you would have had it all figured out by now. After all the things your parents did to you? After everything your family put you through? The years of spite and trauma and ostracism, and you ask me why I did this for you?”
Katryna shook her head. “I never wanted this!”
“You don’t know what you want! You’ve never known what you wanted!”
“So, you thought that you would just murder my family then as a way for me to figure it all out, did you?!”
“Your father, the great and illustrious King Giliam Bower, took me from my home as a small girl! I lost my father; I will never see him again. I lost everyone I ever knew. He forced me to work as your fucking servant, like a good little show dog for the perfect princess Katryna. And your spiteful bitch of a mother… where to even begin with the mad Mira Bower.”
Trish shook her head, rubbing the side of her face where she had once been scarred by the late queen.
“The things my mother did to you were inexcusable,” Katryna said solemnly.
Trish stabbed the dagger down into the table again.
“Everything I have done has been all for you, Kat. I got you home, I avenged the things that were done to you, to us, and I pinned it all on your unworthy brother.”
“Rowan was innocent this whole time,” Finn said, surprised.
“Where is Rowan?” Katryna said.
Trish shrugged. “To be honest, I have no idea. He left before I had the chance to properly deal with him.”
Katryna looked to Finn, both acknowledging to one-another with an expression of despair of how wrong they had been.
“I wanted you to be the woman I know you can be. The queen I know you can be! This kingdom needs your rule,” Trish said excitedly.
“You’re a liar,” Katryna hissed, slamming her fist on the table. “You lie even now. You did this all for yourself, all to get some petty revenge against those who hurt you in the past. Don’t try and make it sound like you had altruistic intentions by murdering three defenceless people.”
“I won’t deny I enjoyed every second of it.”
Katryna clenched her fist, her eyes remaining locked on Trish. Any anxiety she had once harboured was quickly transforming into rage.
“We are all here because of you, Kat,” Trish said. “The fallout of your choices over the years. Running and hiding all this time when you should have been fighting all along.”
Katryna could hear the stark words echo in her memories from a deep pit of horror.
“Katryna, what have you done?!”
Suddenly she could smell of the summer flowers and the cool bliss of the creek’s waters.
She could feel her mother’s strike on her cheek, the day she had marked Trish for life with her letter opener.
She could feel the water filling her lungs as her mother held her head beneath the water in her bathtub, hear her father’s shouting.
Katryna closed her eyes, remembering the night she had left Ravenrock with Trish by her side, a bag full of gold marks and personal belongings, the night air flowing through her hair, and the fear of what was to come next. Two young women, all alone but for each other.
She felt the compression of the guilt on her chest, as if being crushed to death. The pain she still clung to for Willem, for her father, for Aunt Rashel. Even for her mother.
Katryna took in a long, deep breath, before exhaling away all of the things she need not cling to any longer. She refused to feel sorry for herself anymore. She refused to allow herself to be the victim any longer.
“My lady, let me arrest these killers,” Arthus insisted, pulling her back into the present.
“Take them alive if you can. We need to find out where they took Sniff’s mother. And I want them tried for their crimes before our people,” Katryna said.
Ser Arthus and Finn both drew their swords in unison, each taking one side of the enormous painted war table so that Trish and Edrick would have nowhere to go.
Trish snapped. She ripped her ornate dagger from the wood with a sudden scream, the blade between the fingertips of her thumb and first two fingers, before tossing it directly at Katryna, standing directly across the table from her.
Katryna could not even react to what was happening before the dual-bladed dagger came spinning through the air, impaling her in the shoulder.
Her arm exploded with a searing, burning pain, and Katryna was knocked back from the blow. She let out a pained scream, clutching at the dagger sticking out of her shoulder, just next to her collar bone.
Warm blood began to soak into her clothing as the wound throbbed.
“Kat!” Finn shouted, realising what had happened. He did not have time to consider running back for his sister, however, as Edrick pulled a flail up from the weapon rack beside him and charged straight at the prince.
The spiked ball at the end of the flail came flying from overhead with enough force to easily break a skull.
Finn, luckily, heard Edrick charge and the rattling chain, and was able to react in time. He locked on to the spiked head coming straight for his face before leaping out of the way.
Edrick clumsily swung again, knocking over a plated suit of armour with a crash.
At the same time, Ser Arthus marched like an armoured troll on the other side of the table towards Trish. Sword drawn, he pointed it’s tip in her direction, resting the blade against his raised forearm in a defensive posture, ready for anything.
“Come with me, my lady. Let this end,” Arthus demanded, the clashing of swords nearly drowning him out.
Finn continued engaging Edrick, striking a clumsy blow towards the flail-wielding killer which the assailant easily dodged.
Finn regained his footing and straightened his posture, parrying several hits from the menacing flail. The prince refused to land a blow, however, waiting for the right opening to take Edrick down without killing him.
Trish took some steps back from the approaching High Sword before realising she needed another weapon. She looked to her side at the weapon rack, grabbing the closest thing she could reach- a shortsword.
“I don’t think that’s gonna do much damage to me, my lady,” Ser Arthus said, whacking his thick metal chest plate with his free fist. “Surrender now and I will spare you.”
Ser Arthus was only mere steps away from Trish. She smirked at Arthus, throwing the shortsword at his feet as if to yield, before reaching back and grabbing another weapon instead. This time she wielded an intimidating morning star with a long haft and spiked club at the end.
“How about this?” Trish asked sarcastically. “This’ll surely break that fancy armour.”
Trish lunged forward with a scream, swinging wildly with her morning star. Ser Arthus appeared to be an easy target for her, being much older and far larger than she. Yet the talented man simply side-stepped each crazed strike Trish made like it was nothing.
Katryna struggled up from her knees, pulling the dagger out from her bleeding shoulder. She winced at the pain shooting through her arm and chest.
Looking up, Katryna saw two separate melees, as Finn engaged Edrick, and Ser Arthus attempted to seize Trish.
Edrick made large swings with the flail. Finn was careful to keep his eye locked on that spiked ball and chain, lest he suffer a gruesome injury.
Finn held his sword pointed at Edrick. However, he did not risk getting it wrapped in the chain of the flail and being disarmed. Instead, Finn took his time to dodge each wild strike that Edrick made like his disciplined training had taught as a child.
Edrick brought the flail down yet again, this time smashing it into the floor. The spiked ball lodged into the wooden f
loorboards so hard that the planks shattered and cracked.
Finn took two steps forward, maintaining a defensive stance until he saw a good chance to strike.
As Edrick tried but failed to dislodge the flail’s spiked ball from the wood, Finn stabbed at him to Edrick’s surprise.
Finn was careful to not deliver a killing blow. The tip of the sword lodged into Edrick’s shin, ripping through his pants, and carving a large chunk of flesh from the bone.
Edrick screamed in agony at the wound, falling forwards and clutching at his bleeding leg as the strip of flesh dangled having nearly been severed. But the strike only seemed to anger him more.
Edrick huffed and screamed, ripping the spiked ball free from the floor, and rushing at Finn yet again with his hand raised, ready to swing. Finn took the opportunity to surprise Edrick, seeing his midsection was vulnerable.
Though instead of lunging at his attacker like he had just done, Finn launched forward and tackled Edrick before he could even bring the flail down. Edrick was swept off his feet and thrown backwards one of the weapon racks.
The wooden rack splintered and snapped, and the assortment of weapons crashed to the ground around the two brawling men in a mess of metal and debris.
Ser Arthus met another of Trish’s attacks with his sword, causing sparks to fly. She used both hands with the morning star as it was quite large for her small frame, but Arthus only required one hand for his sword.
He leant forward as their weapons met mid-air, punching Trish straight in the nose with his gauntleted fist. Trish stumbled backwards with a bleeding nose. Strands blonde hair dangling over her face grew red.
To Arthus’s surprise, she began to laugh, wiping her bloody nose with a hand and licking the red from her lips.
“You bastard. That all you got?”
Trish did not waiver. She attacked yet again, hitting the morning star’s spiked end against Arthus’s side. Luckily, his armour was thick enough to absorb most of the blow, however it was painful enough to cause him to groan and stagger.
Trish pulled the morning star back. Clear punctures had been left in the metal. She smashed it down again, but Arthus regained his composure and hit the haft with his sword as she came at him, causing Trish stumble.
Katryna stood against the table bleeding, unsure of what she could do to help. But after a moment of doubt, she realised there was nothing she could do- she had to let others help her for once.
Finn and Edrick scrambled through the pile of weapons on the floor on their hands and knees. launching at each other like a pair of animals.
“I’m gonna cleave you like I did your aunt!” Edrick spat at Finn, wiping the sweat from his brow as he got back up.
Finn cried out in fury before launching at the man with his sword. But Edrick was awaiting such a move, having grabbed a sword in his free hand. He dropped the flail before parrying the attack with the sword in his other hand.
Finn lost his footing from the parry and tripped into the mess of wood and weapons. He knocked his temple against the edge of the table so hard that he thought he had passed out for a moment. A sword hilt struck him in the back as he landed, winding him severely.
Edrick did not waste a second before he was standing over the prince.
He stabbed straight down towards Finn’s face, but Finn, on his back, managed to see the sword coming and rolled his head to the side just in the nick of time. The blade sliced his cheek open but had narrowly missed going through his head, instead embedding itself into the floor.
Edrick jumped on top of Finn, his knees on his forearms, forcing Finn to stay down.
Finn gasped for air, his face bloodied and head pounding. Edrick sneered down at his prey, carefully lining up the tip of his sword with the prince’s eye.
“Be seeing you, my prince,” Edrick cackled, driving the sword downwards. Finn, in a panic and defenceless, grabbed the blade with his bare hands, slicing his palms clean open to try and stop it.
Edrick stabbed the tip of the sword into Finn’s eye socket.
Finn let out an agonising shriek as the blade simply sliced through the skin, muscle and tendons of his bare fingers and pierced into his eye.
But before Edrick could drive the sword further into Finn’s head, another blade came out of nowhere and was plunged into the back of Edrick’s neck with a sickening crunch.
Edrick’s eyes went wide, and his grip loosened on the sword still stuck several inches deep in Finn’s face.
Edrick staggered off the prince, clasping at the back of his head where he could feel a curved blade lodged deep into the base of his neck.
Edrick turned around in shock, spitting up mouthfuls of thick blood. Behind him, still wounded yet with an expression of sheer determination, was Katryna. She had managed to get to Edrick just in time to save Finn’s life, it seemed, and had stabbed Trish’s unique dual-bladed dagger into Edrick’s back.
Edrick was unable to even mutter a word but stood back up, staggering all over the place before falling against the floor-to-ceiling windows that adorned the outer wall of the war room, as blood copiously squirted out from his deep puncture wound.
Katryna did not hesitate for a single moment.
The princess rushed towards Edrick, ignoring the agonising throbbing in her wounded shoulder, and rammed into the servant with all the might she could muster.
Edrick was thrown backwards by the charge, straight into the stained-glass windows and out the other side.
The enormous window simply gave way from the force of the impact, shattering into a million spectacular rainbow pieces.
Edrick was there one moment and gone the next, the floor disappearing from beneath his trembling legs as he went through the window.
That high up in the castle, Katryna knew that he would be dead as soon as he hit the ground.
“Edrick! No!” Trish shrieked from the other side of the room. Before the crazed woman could even begin racing over to the shattered window, Ser Arthus drove his sword into Trish’s foot.
The sword pierced through her shoe and into the floorboards below, causing her to fall forwards with a raged scream, her foot stuck in position.
Arthus looked over to Katryna and Finn, removing his helmet to get a clearer view of what had happened. Upon realising that Finn had been severely injured in the conflict, he ran over, leaving Trish impaled to the floor.
Finn lay screaming on the floor with blood spurting out of his broken eye socket. Katryna ripped off some fabric from her dress, pressing it down onto her brother’s broken face.
“You’re alright, Finn, you’re alright,” Katryna repeated in a panic, unsure whether she was trying to console him or herself.
Upon seeing her younger brother’s injury, her own pain from the shoulder wound had all but disappeared.
“Guards! Guards!” Arthus shouted, hoping his men outside would hear him. “Get some healers in here, now! And bring Jerrem Denar, immediately!”
As the guards and healers raced in to help save the prince’s life, Katryna could hear wails and cackles from behind. Trish, stuck impaled to the floor with armed Infinity Guardsmen surrounding her, hysterically wept for her lover, and yet was in hysterics over the prince’s horrific injury.
Katryna did not let Trish win. She would not.
Katryna silenced each venomous word Trish spat out from across the war room as she toiled with the healers to save her brother’s life.
The consequences of her actions over all these years culminated in what lay before her in that very moment.
Chapter 39 - Fires of War
Ser Yelin Mortimer had not had to fight in many years. His body had grown old and fat, and his mind slower than it once was. He even had to commission a new set of royal guard armour for himself only the previous year, as his previous set no longer fit over his protruding gut.
Yet the events surrounding the knight stunned every muscle into activity. His reflexes seemed to come back all at once; his focused mind and ability to multita
sk returned in a flash, all as the world around him descended into utter chaos.
Ser Yelin had been seated with Queen Sirillia in her tent, sharing a flask of wine and having a quaint discussion when explosions began to ring out across the fields surrounding the town of Tellersted.
“Stay here, my queen!” Yelin ordered, racing for the flaps of the tent, and popping his head out to find the cause of the sudden noises.
Soldiers were running to their stations around the temporary camp they had established while the king was having his meeting with the Seynards.
Yelin felt his lungs tighten upon seeing the sky, alight in a spectacular array of fiery colours and clouds of smoke and ash, more brilliant than an Autumn sunset. Nothing about it looked natural. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
“What is it?! What’s happening?” Sirillia asked, eyes wide with fear.
Another explosion caused the ground to shake, like a tremendous crack of thunder. Yelin did not see what had caused it but caught a glimpse of a sudden flash of orange and white light followed by a rising cloud of debris far off in town.
“A catapult strike on the town, perhaps, sir?” a nearby soldier suggested.
“Are we attacking, sir? Shall we form up to march?” another asked.
“Is Tellersted under attack?” Sirillia gasped.
Isolated fires ignited in the town and the fields around them. Sprays of earth and debris appeared to be spitting up from the ground far off.
Then, the sky began to fall.
Yelin looked up in sheer horror, his soldiers around him captivated by the same sight. From the unnaturally billowing clouds came dozens of fireballs, streaking across the sky faster than any arrow.
Yelin shouted for Sirillia to get to cover as a blast went off nearby. A wall of blistering-hot air shot through the camp, blowing men off their feet, and ripping up tents and supply boxes as if they weighed nothing.
Yelin fell to the ground in a daze as hot embers and choking ash smothered his face.
“My queen!?” Yelin called out, waving his hands about to clear the smoke, and wiping the sweat from his brow as he tore open the tent’s flaps to check on Sirillia.
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